Welcome To The Hermit's Desk

5 AM. Life slowly dawns on a barren hospital. It's as if I and the blood draw nurse are the only ones haunting the linoleum floors of this ward, even as I know I am only one out of what must be millions of sleepless patients across the nation.

You are so right. You guys are always so, so right.

I want so dearly to go back in time and cup the sobbing face of my 17 year old self, torn inside and out, and tell her that it will be okay. And I know my 50 year old self will want to do the same here, to embrace my 35 year old self, and tell her that it will be okay.

Why is self-compassion so difficult, even if we can clearly see it is the only thing that will save us?

But 50 seems so far away right now, and we can only consume the time we are actively living in. And in this time, I stare at the world spinning, passing me outside the windows. I watch the parking lot fill up, car after car. I watch people - doctors, visitors, people who will soon be looking out of windows just as I am right now - spill out onto the pavement. I want so badly to be out there right now.

For a cigarette, if nothing else. It's funny - coming so close to dying only made my wishes to hold onto my vice stronger. Even with the patches that are now permanently on my prescribe-daily hospital record, this time, the craving for a cigarette is beyond palpable. I can taste it this time, whereas normally it simply is a thing I'd like to do, but can't because I'm in the hospital.

I don't quite understand the logic behind that, only that if a nic-fit were a blade, I'd have a hell of a bloody tongue right now.

The clock crawls. It is no one's friend. From the seat of a hospital bed, it is a ridiculously low-action place to be in. Not a whole lot to do. Sometimes the words provide themselves, sometimes they don't. Life in general, but amplified in a building where people go to live and die. One can only stare at the clock, or at the screen, or out the window, for so long before your eyeballs start to bleed.

I'll go get a cup of coffee. I cannot leave this floor, as I am on a heart monitor. But the floor lobby itself has coffee.